The Alsace Almanac . 13th EASE Conference | Strasbourg 2016

Today’s news

Plenary Review | Bouter.........2

Summary | Guidelines…………...2

Plenary Review | Bergadaà…...3

Summary | Managing Ethics….3

Summary | Screening…………...4

Summary | Reducing Waste…..4

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Sunday, Sunday! Welcome to the third and final day of conference proceed-ings at the Faculté de Médecine, Strasbourg! We were treat-ed to some real weather yesterday, weren’t we?!

Hope everyone enjoyed the conference dinner, and everyone enjoyed good food and conversation. Thanks to @MarleneBras for the picture!

Day Three

12th June

Teaser Answer: The answer to yesterday’s teaser was: Simon Marx!

Gift shop!

Spotted while out-and-about: a gift

shop with the most appropriate

name! This will go nicely with your

EASE tote-bags!

From print to chemicals

The French industrial revolu-

tion began in Alsace. The

region had strong traditions in

textiles and printing, both of

which used coloured dyes or

inks, which led in part to the

chemical industries of nearby

Basel, now known as the

home of many pharmaceutical

companies.

David Moher discussed how guidelines can be used to reduce re-search waste and the part editors can play in their implementa-tion. Ann Cambon Thomson outlined the CoBRA guidelines for citation of bioresources. Shirin Heidari highlighted the paucity of gender and sex based research, the harm it causes, and how edi-tors can help. Cara Tannenbaum discussed the implementation and findings of efforts to encourage sex and gender based re-search in Canada. Sylwia Ufnalska presented the EASE guidelines and resources for scientific publishing. Ines Steffen discussed several instances when guidelines do not help. Nicolas Dolan

Plenary review | Lex Bouter

Session Summary | Guidelines

In the first Plenary lecture, Lex Bouter introduced us to misconduct with an overview of selective replica-tion and scarcity of replicability, themes that were returned to throughout the day. Among his so-called 60 shades of grey of miscon-duct that can occur in research, one quote was particularly memorable: "If you torture data enough it will always confess." His take home mes-sage was that sloppy science (eg, ignorance, honest error, and dubious integrity) is a greater evil than fraud-ulent conduct due to the higher pro-portion of cases. During his lecture Lex Bouter men-tioned one of his PhD students who had recently finished a dissertation on publication pressure. There were

some questions on this during the break, and Prof. Bouter has kindly provided the URL to access this research:, for anyone that wants to read it: http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/54492 Prof. Bouter also recommended further reading of the website of the Nether-lands Research Integrity Network, which is written in English and widely used outside the Netherlands. www.nrin.nl

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“If you torture data

enough, it will always

confess”

Nobel Laureate

Albert Schweitzer (14 January

1875 – 4 September 1965)

was a native of Alsace who

received the 1952 Nobel

Peace Prize for his philosophy

of "Reverence for Life", ex-

pressed in many ways, but

most famously in founding

and sustaining the Albert

Schweitzer Hospital in Lam-

baréné, now in Gabon, west

central Africa (then French

Equatorial Africa). He was

born in Alsace and his house

can be seen in the village of

Gunsbach. Schweitzer, a Lu-

theran, challenged both the

secular view of Jesus as de-

picted by historical-critical

methodology current at this

time in certain academic cir-

cles, as well as the traditional

Christian view. He a music

scholar and organist, who

influenced the Organ reform

movement (Orgelbewegung).

In this session, author’s editor Elise Langdon-Neuner described the lan-guage concerns surrounding manuscripts of non-English speakers, con-cluding that the use of plain rather than ‘academic’ English is less likely to lead to misinterpretation, followed by Helen Penny who gave tips on how to detect spin in research articles, with insights from the Lancet copy-editing team. Duncan Nicholas then described the various educational resources available to editors, and outlined some interesting cases of so-called salami slicing and plagiarism. Finally, moderator Pippa Smart end-ed the session, reminding editors that they should consider authors’ rights to the freedom of expression when editing.

Helen Penny

Plenary review Michelle Bergadaà University of Geneva

Session Summary | Managing Ethics

Michelle Bergadaà introduced us to her framework of

various plagiarist personalities, the behaviours that

typify them, and potential routes of treat-

ment. Michelle described some of the methods of

dealing with a complaint of plagiarism or fraud, from

development of a common language, through to paci-

fication of the community. The session concluded with

a brief but spirited debate on the existence and culpa-

bility of an unwitting plagiarist.

Michelle's collaborative website is a resource for pla-

giarism analysis and intervention, and can be found

at http://responsable.unige.ch

Rhiannon Howe

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Teaser:

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, born in Colmar, half an hour by train

from Strasbourg, is famous for creating what?

"La Marseillaise"

The national anthem of

France was written in

1792 by Claude Joseph

Rouget de Lisle in Stras-

bourg after the declara-

tion of war by France

against Austria, and was

originally titled "Chant

de guerre pour l'Armée

du Rhin" ("War Song for

the Rhine Army"). The

French National Conven-

tion adopted it as the

Republic's anthem in

1795. It acquired its

nickname after being

sung in Paris by volun-

teers from Marseille

marching on the capital.

This session covered three aspects of screening by editors; text screening, image manipulation and data/statistics. Rachael Lammey gave an update on the uptake of the Crossref Similarity Check ser-vice and plans to develop the functionality. Sioux Cumming provided practical insights and lessons learned from the manuscript screening trial she has been running with the INASP Journals Online project. Sun Huh from Hallym University followed up with information on image preparation, demonstrating online tools that can be used to detect alterations made to images. Finally, independent statistical reviewer Chris Palmer shared advice on working with statistics and dis-tinguishing between fraud and error in interpreting these. Takeaway: there are no simple answers in evaluating manu-scripts – editor overview, buy-in and knowledge are still key! Rachel Lammey

Session summary | Reducing waste

Session Summary | Screening

Chaired by Joan Marsh, the Reducing waste in research and publishing session addressed the important challenge of research waste in scien-tific publishing. Paul Glasziou suggested how editors can help reduce the estimated 85% of health research wasted—eg, by encouraging use of reporting guidelines and introducing incentives for full reporting. Tools that aid experimental design—such as the Experimental Design Assistant introduced by Nathalie Percie du Sert from NC3Rs—aim to re-duce waste by in-creasing transpar-ency of protocols and validity of find-ings. Karen Shashok outlined how free-lance editors help authors to reduce research waste be-fore manuscript submission, and Pia Rotshtein introduced a new concept in peer review in the form of Registered Reports, an article form that is first peer-reviewed be-fore data collection to promote sound hypotheses and robust protocols in research. With the approaches discussed and campaigns such as The Lancet’s REWARD, editors can play an important part in reducing waste in scientific research. Cheryl Lai

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